Burghfield Common OAP in Thai jail

A Burghfield Common pensioner has just been released after spending a month in a Thai jail cell with 70 other prisoners.

David Harris, 62, of Reading Road, was arrested in December after a fight in a bar when a man from Wales suffered a fractured skull.

He was bailed at first but last month he was put in the Pattya Remand Centre and only released when he was able to raise £2,000 bail.

He said: “It was horrendous. Words cannot describe how terrible it was. There were 70 people in the cell with me.

“At night we were lying on top of each other trying to sleep with an elbow in your ear or a foot in your face.”

He said one Thai prisoner was beaten to death for stealing cigarettes and another died of TB.

He said: “The prison is run by the prisoners. The currency is cigarettes and if you don’t have someone on the outside to help you, you would starve to death. The food is completely inedible.

“If you have cigarettes you can exchange them for cakes and other food.”

Mr Harris was kept supplied by an old friend who lives in Thailand and who is helping him fight his case.

He now lives in fear of being picked up by the police again and being sent back to jail.

He said: “You have to carry ID at all times in Thailand and the only ID I have is my passport and the authorities have it. If I had to go back in jail I just wouldn’t. I would kill myself first.”

He went on: “I am innocent but I haven’t made a plea yet. The trouble is that my lawyer tells me that if I plead not guilty and then am found guilty, under Thai law my sentence would be doubled. I could get anything between three months and 10 years.

“Another problem is that if I plead not guilty in November when my case comes to court it could be ages – years maybe – before the case is heard and I would have to stay here. But I want to plead not guilty.”

Mr Harris, who has two sons and a daughter, also fears he has lost his home in Burghfield Common while he has been in Thailand because he has been unable to pay the £10 a week contribution he is supposed to make for the rent.

The dad, who has been holidaying in Thailand since 2004, is currently living in a bar and relying on his pension and friends for financial support.

He said: “I never dreamt going on holiday could end in this kind of nightmare. It is a living hell.”

Wokingham MP John Redwood is taking up Mr Harris’s case with the Foreign Office.

He said: “I shall be contacting the minister David Miliband about Mr Harris. He is out of prison at the moment and we want to ensure that remains the case.”